Re: Sound only

Dave wrote <<Was the old unit specially produced for this job?>> Yes.
It's a small box with just three easily used dials: channel, volume &
tone. I'm looking for a direct replacement (or, as near as possible).

Alas, for some time now the trend with radios, TV, and audio is to have
almost no controls on the actual unit and to rely on a pushbutton remote
control. To make things more awkward there is a tendency to rely on
'onscreen menus' and tiny buttons.

It may be possible to find a Digital TV (DTTV) receiver box that can feed
its output via UHF into the antenna socket on the box you have. That would
allow your mother to go on using her existing box for producing the actual
sound, and use it controls to adjust volume and tone. However she would
have to set/change channel using the remote control for the DTTV box.

Failing a Digital receiver with UHF output, you can also get modulators for
a few quid that take the usual SCART output and convert it. These can give
a poor picture, but that presumably isn't very important in this case! :-)

Alternately, if the box she has already provides some 'line in' sockets for
sound you can connect this to the audio from the DTTV box and avoid needing
a UHF modulator.

I assume it will be just a matter of time before the RNIB or someone alert
to this gets around to use a DTTV box that can be used as a simple 'sound
radio'. Putting the receiver in with some simple audio circuits would be
easy enough. The snag is the tendency to omit easy controls for something
like channel changes.

I must confess that I have repeatedly wondered about this issue as it seems
to be an area that makers simply ignore. The situation seems to me to be
made worse by three factors:

1) Loads of channels.

2) occasional changes in channels, requiring a 'rescan' or similar.

3) heavy reliance on onscreen menus and a remote control with pushbuttons.

Omitting old fashioned physical controls reduces the manufacturing cost and
makes for flexibility (as does allowing rescanning, over-air updates, etc)
but it can mean problems for some users, I fear.

Can you say who produced the unit she has been using, or point to where we
could find details?

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